It is propelled entirely by solid boosters, with a 76 booster first stage, 42 booster second, 22 booster third, and 6 booster fourth. Roughly 1/3 of the world's aluminum production for a year was taken up by the struts used for rigidity. For some reason, the lander carries 4 symmetrically spaced temperature sensors, one of them laid overlapping a hatch.

Marine1:kyleaugustus: Fark is where I first heard about Kerbal Space Program more than two years ago and I'm happy to see it finally creeping into the headlines.

I just found out about it yesterday.

Will give a try over Christmas Vacation.

I wish you good fortune and many fine flights. Nothing I've played has come close to the anxiety, stress, sweaty palms, and final satisfaction of my first Mun landing (KSP's major Moon-like moon orbiting your home planet of Kerbin).

This is why it's horseshait when people whine about the US "not having a space program anymore". We're doing what the US has always had as one of its biggest strengths: letting private citizens act on their own to achieve great things. The greatness of the US isn't in the government, or Washington; it's in citizens doing things themselves. I'm glad that we've moved away from a State space agency being at the forefront in favor of private companies taking the lead. That's the US I want to live in.

RangerTaylor:It is propelled entirely by solid boosters, with a 76 booster first stage, 42 booster second, 22 booster third, and 6 booster fourth. Roughly 1/3 of the world's aluminum production for a year was taken up by the struts used for rigidity. For some reason, the lander carries 4 symmetrically spaced temperature sensors, one of them laid overlapping a hatch.

Marine1:kyleaugustus: Fark is where I first heard about Kerbal Space Program more than two years ago and I'm happy to see it finally creeping into the headlines.

I just found out about it yesterday.

Will give a try over Christmas Vacation.

The trick to KSP is remembering that, much like Dwarf Fortress, failure is fun. There's a pretty steep learning curve (after all, it is rocket science!) but if you check any of Scott Manley's videos, or check out the KSP or Kerbal Academy subreddits, you should get a pretty good idea of where to start. I'd caution against building aircraft/spaceplanes- while they are most certainly doable, the aerodynamic models for KSP are incredibly broken, and require a pretty substantial knowledge of the mechanics to get something off the ground to stay off the ground.

/I brake for lithospheres//Lithobraking is the most Kerbal kind of braking!///Sudden rapid disassembly usually results in sudden rapid new-astronaut-training.

grandjedimasterbill:Marine1: kyleaugustus: Fark is where I first heard about Kerbal Space Program more than two years ago and I'm happy to see it finally creeping into the headlines.

I just found out about it yesterday.

Will give a try over Christmas Vacation.

The trick to KSP is remembering that, much like Dwarf Fortress, failure is fun. There's a pretty steep learning curve (after all, it is rocket science!) but if you check any of Scott Manley's videos, or check out the KSP or Kerbal Academy subreddits, you should get a pretty good idea of where to start. I'd caution against building aircraft/spaceplanes- while they are most certainly doable, the aerodynamic models for KSP are incredibly broken, and require a pretty substantial knowledge of the mechanics to get something off the ground to stay off the ground.

/I brake for lithospheres//Lithobraking is the most Kerbal kind of braking!///Sudden rapid disassembly usually results in sudden rapid new-astronaut-training.

For the Kerbal-curious, listen to everything this guy just said. Also watch Scott Manley's videos. I did. It's worth the time doing it.

theresnothinglft:Cpl.D: RangerTaylor: Holy crap, did you build that in orbit or construct some godawful ascent stage to get it up?

[i.imgur.com image 850x478]Build once, launch once.

and THAT is what NASA would do if they had the budget currently used for Defense

I often think about that. What we spend in one year for the DoD eclipses the entire budget used by space exploration. All of it.

If I were elected president, I'd promise to be so wholly incompetent that I'd confuse the DoD and NASA budgets every year I was in office. Oh, and the public education system would get federal penitentiary money.

They nead to drill into that bastard and start planting it full of Nuke waste, toxic chemicals, and Bioharrardous materials! Make that bastard glow brighter! Woooooooo! Go 'merica! We'z gut us a new dump'n ground!!!!! Yeah! Oh and lets put some of that Low Income housing there thats all NIMBY here on earth..... yeah, put it right on top of the Sea of Tranquility, yeah! That'll sell. 80'x48' freehold townhouse lots in the sea of fark'n tranquility! 1130 sq ft of suburban moon bliss with in ground nuclear waste heating and a bedroom skylight pointed right at the earth. Shag the lover in the pale Earth-Light.... I can hear a country western song coming..... wee haw! You could open a chain of stores called the 0-28 cause the rock doesn't freakin spin at all in it's 28 day cycle. "Hey hunny! I'm head'n down to the 0-28 for a couple of cans of air! You need anything?!" fark yeah! While you're at that 0-28 you could buy a lunar scratch ticket too for a chance to get back to earth. That'd be farking cool too. Scratch off three earths and get a free escape pod back to the big blue marble!

............... man I gotta lay off the coffee and Denis Leary albums....................

taurusowner:This is why it's horseshait when people whine about the US "not having a space program anymore". We're doing what the US has always had as one of its biggest strengths: letting private citizens act on their own to achieve great things. The greatness of the US isn't in the government, or Washington; it's in citizens doing things themselves. I'm glad that we've moved away from a State space agency being at the forefront in favor of private companies taking the lead. That's the US I want to live in.

grandjedimasterbill:I'd caution against building aircraft/spaceplanes- while they are most certainly doable, the aerodynamic models for KSP are incredibly broken, and require a pretty substantial knowledge of the mechanics to get something off the ground to stay off the ground.

I used the Albatross in sandbox mode, modified it to use multiple ion drives as part of the propulsion system (along with one jet engine), and tried to circumnavigate the globe. Made it about half way around before the terminator caught up with me and I ran out of sunlight. After the career mode came out I gave up on it and started a career.

I also built a small solar only plane that used two ion drives and it actually flew very well. Landed it on the island runway and then gave up to move to something else. Man I love that game.

zimbomba63:taurusowner: This is why it's horseshait when people whine about the US "not having a space program anymore". We're doing what the US has always had as one of its biggest strengths: letting private citizens act on their own to achieve great things. The greatness of the US isn't in the government, or Washington; it's in citizens doing things themselves. I'm glad that we've moved away from a State space agency being at the forefront in favor of private companies taking the lead. That's the US I want to live in.

Here's a pic of my first Mun landing. Autojeb decided to go crazy about 50 meters over the surface.The crew and module survived for about a month in that tin can while I built and sent a rescue mission. But the rescue mission wasn't a complete success. I got them back to Kerbal, but learned the hard way I need to test against parts falling off when the parachute fully opens. The hitch hiker storage module broke free 500 meters over the surface when the chutes fully opened. At least their bodies were able to be returned to their families.

\got a probe into the atmosphere of Jool last night. Tons of science (300 science per instrument on the first send), but the solar panels broke free and I didn't have enough power to transmit the science back. So I just got watch it plunge into the gas giant.

Heya its the KSP posting dude :) I have a couple questions for you: In one of your massive contraptions it looked like you had side-loaded orange tanks in almost a dispenser kind of format, how would you secure them? Just with struts? Also have you solved the mystery of how to double-attach things? A couple of your pics look like there's several lattices that join two stacks together. Is that just clever strutting? I've often been hindered in designs because there's no apparent way to have stacks linked with more then one solid object link between them.

Heya its the KSP posting dude :) I have a couple questions for you: In one of your massive contraptions it looked like you had side-loaded orange tanks in almost a dispenser kind of format, how would you secure them? Just with struts? Also have you solved the mystery of how to double-attach things? A couple of your pics look like there's several lattices that join two stacks together. Is that just clever strutting? I've often been hindered in designs because there's no apparent way to have stacks linked with more then one solid object link between them.

Side loaded tanks? I think you mean this one:

One of my earliest designs. Secured (back then) with just a decoupler and lots and lots of struts. If I were to do it again, knowing what I know now, I'd put trusses on the outside of the tanks, rotate it so it laid flush with the tank, then ran struts from tank to tank attaching at the trusses . I find it solves a ton of engineering issues if you put trusses on things and then run the struts between the trusses. Struts have great hold, but can't flex, so with tons of weight, they tend to snap. Trusses can flex but aren't horribly rigid. A blend of the two gives it both flexibility and strength.

Also, there is no way to double-connect something. Regrettably. The parts are saved in a hierarchical tree format with parent/child relationships. So this means the humble torus is impossible. I just fake it as best as I can, and close the "o" with trusses and struts.

Note the trusses and strut combo. This is also an example of a method that is excellent at lifting odd-shaped things into orbit. I call it caging. Build the rocket around the payload, and build a truss cage around it, and use struts to secure the payload to the cage. Half of what I lift into orbit these days are pulled off using this method.

Heya its the KSP posting dude :) I have a couple questions for you: In one of your massive contraptions it looked like you had side-loaded orange tanks in almost a dispenser kind of format, how would you secure them? Just with struts? Also have you solved the mystery of how to double-attach things? A couple of your pics look like there's several lattices that join two stacks together. Is that just clever strutting? I've often been hindered in designs because there's no apparent way to have stacks linked with more then one solid object link between them.

Side loaded tanks? I think you mean this one:

[i.imgur.com image 850x531]One of my earliest designs. Secured (back then) with just a decoupler and lots and lots of struts. If I were to do it again, knowing what I know now, I'd put trusses on the outside of the tanks, rotate it so it laid flush with the tank, then ran struts from tank to tank attaching at the trusses . I find it solves a ton of engineering issues if you put trusses on things and then run the struts between the trusses. Struts have great hold, but can't flex, so with tons of weight, they tend to snap. Trusses can flex but aren't horribly rigid. A blend of the two gives it both flexibility and strength.

Also, there is no way to double-connect something. Regrettably. The parts are saved in a hierarchical tree format with parent/child relationships. So this means the humble torus is impossible. I just fake it as best as I can, and close the "o" with trusses and struts.

Aye I think that's the one, thank you for the explination :) I've often though of a 'soda can dispenser' like setup where there's a vertical bank of tanks that can be ejected from bottom to top as they empty :)

Heya its the KSP posting dude :) I have a couple questions for you: In one of your massive contraptions it looked like you had side-loaded orange tanks in almost a dispenser kind of format, how would you secure them? Just with struts? Also have you solved the mystery of how to double-attach things? A couple of your pics look like there's several lattices that join two stacks together. Is that just clever strutting? I've often been hindered in designs because there's no apparent way to have stacks linked with more then one solid object link between them.

Side loaded tanks? I think you mean this one:

[i.imgur.com image 850x531]One of my earliest designs. Secured (back then) with just a decoupler and lots and lots of struts. If I were to do it again, knowing what I know now, I'd put trusses on the outside of the tanks, rotate it so it laid flush with the tank, then ran struts from tank to tank attaching at the trusses . I find it solves a ton of engineering issues if you put trusses on things and then run the struts between the trusses. Struts have great hold, but can't flex, so with tons of weight, they tend to snap. Trusses can flex but aren't horribly rigid. A blend of the two gives it both flexibility and strength.

Also, there is no way to double-connect something. Regrettably. The parts are saved in a hierarchical tree format with parent/child relationships. So this means the humble torus is impossible. I just fake it as best as I can, and close the "o" with trusses and struts.

Aye I think that's the one, thank you for the explination :) I've often though of a 'soda can dispenser' like setup where there's a vertical bank of tanks that can be ejected from bottom to top as they empty :)

They explored this idea on Reddit. They called it "Bamboo staging". I did it once a while ago as well. Let's see if I can find the picture....